Editor’s note: The community input survey is now open through Oct. 5
I want to thank Mayumi Peacock for penning the recent publisher’s note Being Engaged Starts Young. I couldn’t agree more that we, as a community, need to involve our youth in civic engagement and encourage their active participation.
Being the campaign director for the Friends of the Truckee Library, my role is to actively engage and inform the community about our advocacy to build a new library in Truckee. As part of the architecture planning for the new library, the core partners (Nevada County, Town of Truckee, and Friends of the Truckee Library) are currently soliciting community input on library priorities and design. The first round of community input focused on how our community envisions using the spaces inside and outside the library. There were many options for people to choose from, including one that sparked some controversy: Gaming.
At our in-person community input survey events, I received many comments from adults expressing concerns such as: “kids are always on video devices”; “a library shouldn’t encourage video games”; “why would a library have video games when everyone has them at home?”; and “aren’t video games independent? I thought the goal of a library was to bring kids together.” Quite frankly, many adults did not see the value of including gaming in a library.
Honestly, I was one of those adults who held negative opinions about gaming in the library — that is until I had the chance to hear from our youth directly during our community input sessions. One of the teen survey participants shared with me that she selected gaming because she enjoys playing video games but currently plays alone in her room. She explained that it’s difficult to bring two gaming systems and screens into one house and that some of her friends cannot afford their own gaming systems. So, she can only participate in the gaming she enjoys at home, alone. She said that if there were gaming at the library, she could play with friends in person. The barrier for some kids who can’t afford these gaming systems would disappear, making it an equalizer. She even said that if she were at the library to play games, she would probably pick out a book to bring home afterward, simply because of the proximity to books. I heard many similar stories from the hundreds of kids who participated in our in-person community input survey. The kids were excited about this option and enthusiastic about being part of shaping the new library.
When we look at the overall survey results, “books for all” is number one, but “gaming” ended up being one of the top community priorities. This happened because we gave our youth a voice in the survey, and they were passionate about sharing their thoughts on what this new library could be. When we give our children the opportunity to voice their opinions and be part of the conversation, they open our minds to what can be. As this library will be used by our youth in a significant capacity, they should have a voice in this process. I’m grateful that our youth have the opportunity to be engaged in building this important community infrastructure.
On Aug. 9, we opened the second round of the community input survey. The survey focuses on the exterior and sustainability features for the new library. I’m looking forward to our future events and intentionally engaging our youth to learn more about their opinions on these design elements.
Participate in the survey at surveyhero.com/c/TruckeeCommunitySurveyR2 through Oct. 5. To learn more about the new Truckee library, visit truckeefol.org.
~ As the campaign director for Friends of the Truckee Library, April Cole leads the advocacy efforts for a new Truckee library. She also instructs group fitness classes at Liv Studio. A dedicated community volunteer, April is a former Rotary Club president and was recently named Best Volunteer in the Sierra Sun Best of Contest.
